The Sap Also Rises | A Mythic Catskills Weekend
March 29-31, 2019

Name: The Sap Also Rises | A Mythic Catskills Weekend
Start: 2019-03-29T18:00:00-04:00
End: 2019-03-31T12:00:00-04:00
Location: Spillian

Savor a mythic weekend celebrating the slow sweet rise of Catskills maple sap and the coming of spring. The Vernal Equinox has just arrived, and spring, however light of touch, is beginning to unfurl in the mountains.

Join our wonderful partners Table to Farm Tours and Spillian for a grand weekend exploring the sap bush and sap houses of the Catskill maple syrup world, and the hope of a Catskills spring.

And, of course, maple-inspired feasting and merriment will infuse the weekend.

The Sap Also Rises at Spillian. It’s Mythic. Local. Real.

REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED FOR THIS EVENT! Thanks so much for your interest! Please join us at one of our other Mythic Catskills Weekends coming up! You can learn more about them here. We’d love to see you!

Mythic Catskills Weekends

Spillian’s Mythic Catskills Weekends are an intersection with the essence of the Catskills: the forests, the mountains, the people, the deep stories that make this place so compelling.

Each weekend celebrates a facet of this gem-like place: its food, its fish and streams, its ringing summer, its snow-spangled winters, its flowing creative life force.

Come for a weekend of grand adventure. Feast. Explore. Hear the great stories and share your own. Revel in the mythic possibility of the Catskills and find where it sings in your life – and then bring that song back home with you.

The Sap Also Rises: A Mythic Catskills Weekend | What’s Included

Friday

6 PM: A robust farm-to-table charcuterie, including local meats, cheeses, spring greens, house-made hummus, relishes, chutneys, tarts, and more from our neighboring farmers and food producers.
6:30 PM A maple syrup tasting, featuring the syrups of our friends and neighbors, Tree Juice Maple Syrup.
Tales, real and mythic, about the history of syruping in the Catskills in front of the blazing fire.

Saturday

9 AM: A classic Spillian Catskills breakfast featuring eggs from Spillian Farm’s ridiculous chickens.
10 AM: A moving meditation with Spillian co-founder Leigh Melander, going deep into images of the mountains and metaphors of rising spring.
11 AM: A curated wander with Table to Farm Tours, visiting Catskills maple syrup producers Roxbury Mountain Maple and Hubbell Family Farm, award-winning cheese makers Two Stones Farm, and Union Grove Distillery to taste their Catskill Maple Spirits, with lunch at Kimchee Harvest Kitchen, an innovative local farm-to-table café.
5 PM: Cocktails featuring maple flavors, and live mountain music from the delightful Godforsaken String Band.
7 PM: A sap-rising feast around Spillian’s feasting table from our chef Christian Van Etten.
9 PM: A chance to share stories of your adventures around the fire.

Sunday

9 AM: A Spillian Catskills breakfast.
10 AM: Making maple syrup candy with Spillian chef Christian Van Etten in the snow (or crushed ice if the snows have disappeared!).
11 AM: A farewell toast with Spillian’s own maple cordial.

The Saturday Sap Also Rises Feast

A family style feast around our extraordinary mahogany dining table, all dressed for the season. This table is a true place of convivium, where tales are topped, ideas are birthed, and friendships created. Here’s what chef Christian Van Etten is thinking for the menu…

• Asparagus Salad with Two Stones Farm Goat Cheese, Frizzled Ramps, and a Tree Juice Maple and Awestruck Cider Vinaigrette
• Highland Farm Venison with Blue Sky Blueberry Wine Reduction
• Maple and Mustard Glazed Roast Chicken with Apples and Shallots
• Farro with Wild Mushrooms and Garlic Mustard Pesto
• Maple Glazed Roasted Brussel Sprouts
• House Made Maple Walnut Ice Cream with Union Grove Catskills Spirit Chocolate Drizzle

Pricing

Saturday Feast & Festivities: $65 per person
(Join us for the feast and tales around the fire. Cash bar cocktails with live music begin at 5 PM, dinner at 7 PM. Cocktails, tax and gratuities not included.)

Saturday Syrup Tour, Feast & Festivities: $175 per person
(Join us for the syrup wander with lunch, cash bar cocktails, dinner, and tales around the fire. Please be at Spillian by 10:45 for a 11 AM departure. Cocktails, tax and gratuities not included.)

Full Sap Also Rises Weekend For One: $595
Per person, single room occupancy. Full weekend fee includes all sessions including guided farm tour, all meals; syrup tasting; moving meditation; cooking class; and lodging at Spillian. Evening cash bar, purchases on farms, tax, and gratuities not included. Click here to learn more about our splendid guest rooms!

Full Sap Also Rises Weekend For a Couple: $895
For the couple, double room occupancy. Full weekend fee includes all sessions including guided farm tour, all meals; syrup tasting; moving meditation; cooking class; and lodging at Spillian. Evening cash bar, purchases on farms, tax, and gratuities not included. Click here to learn more about our splendid guest rooms!

About Table to Farm Tours

Our goal is to connect the dots for you, curating tours to a variety of local producers from creameries to tea blenders, veggie farms to hard cideries, creating an experience you’ll remember long after you’ve visited the Catskills. Hop in our comfortable van and we’ll take you on full day tour or come along for an evening of amazing libations and excellent farm-to-table food. You’ll have opportunities to meet individual farmers and makers, hear their stories, learn about their philosophies, tour their site, and taste some amazing food and drink. Learn more here.

About Tree Juice Maple Syrup

SpillianGroupPacket2020-1Tree Juice Maple Syrup™ is made at Lazy Crazy Acres Farm. Nestled in the Drybrook Valley of the Catskills Mountains of New York, the Fairbairn family have owned and operated this 100+ acre farm since the 1930’s. In 2012, Jake Fairbairn and Ryan Annetts resurrected the family’s sugar shack, which had been unused for eight years, and began making Tree Juice Maple Syrup™. Around 5000 maple trees on the farm’s rolling hills are tapped each year. Miles of tubing gravity feed the sap to the sugar house where a wood fire evaporator turns the sap into sweet stuff, with a wild and wonderful variety of flavors. Learn more here.

About Leigh Melander, PhD

Spillian co-founder Leigh Melander has a doctorate in cultural mythology and psychology, and an extensive background in the performing and creative arts. She’s studied, performed, and taught movement classes around the US and in Greece, Mexico, and Romania. Leigh’s moving meditation sessions are an engaging way to explore how our bodies understand place and story through yoga, pilates, and guided imagery. Leigh served for five years on the Board of Directors of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, has been published in both scholarly and popular publications on myth and story, and hosted a weekly radio show, Myth America, for three years. She guides the programming at Spillian, and offers workshops on imagination, creativity, and story here and around the US.

About The Godforsaken String Band

From one of the Catskills’ most favorite local bands…The Godforsaken String Band offers simple, eloquent, joyous back-in-time playing of authentic Old Time and Appalachian Tunes. This foursome brings a fiddle, clawhammer banjo, rhythms and vocals…and instruments to spare! Make a joyful mountain noise. Learn more here.

About Tree Juice Maple Syrup

Tree Juice Maple Syrup™ is made at Lazy Crazy Acres Farm. Nestled in the Drybrook Valley of the Catskills Mountains of New York, the Fairbairn family have owned and operated this 100+ acre farm since the 1930’s. In 2012, Jake Fairbairn and Ryan Annetts resurrected the family’s sugar shack, which had been unused for eight years, and began making Tree Juice Maple Syrup™. Around 5000 maple trees on the farm’s rolling hills are tapped each year. Miles of tubing gravity feed the sap to the sugar house where a wood fire evaporator turns the sap into sweet stuff, with an amazing array of special flavors. Learn more here.

Jenna Gaudio

12:55 09 Sep 23

Spillian is a magical place. You see it the very first time you turn onto the grounds and drive down a long, lush road that climbs to reveal a moody Victorian estate at the top. You feel the magic in the ferns, flowers, and trees that surround the area - creating the feeling of mystical protection from the rest of the world. You know this place is magic when you meet the owners, who ooze creativity and kindness with their every word of excitement for what they do. The building is unlike any other, rich with artwork and collected items from around the world. The meadow, where people meet around the fire, get married, and dance under the stars, is clearly crafted with thoughtfulness and rarity that leaves an impression on anyone who's lucky enough to experience it.

The food by Spillian's Chef was impossibly flawless meal after meal - and after being diagnosed with an autoimmune and food allergies a year before the wedding, I didn't really make it easy on him. We had a divine welcome party taco bar, a Mediterranean rehearsal dinner, a special request burrata bar at cocktail hour, fresh, local summer dishes for the wedding dinner, and a to-die-for goodbye brunch.

Not only are the owners creative and kind, but they are also keen on logistics, communication, and collaboration to keep the stress down. It was forecasted to storm terribly off-an-on all weekend, but we had gone all-in on a fully outdoor wedding. They watched the weather and stayed in contact with our vendors in case we had to restructure the wedding inside, but the day of everyone felt we should make the attempt outside - and we got very lucky the weather held up! They are creative problem solvers and will go above and beyond to help make the day go smoothly. Our Wedding cake vendor fell through days before the wedding, and when I asked if they could make a watermelon wedding cake so we could still have that wedding cake moment, they made it happen - and it ended up being an incredibly memorable part of the day.

Pro tips:
-Definitely book it for the weekend and give yourself an extra day to walk the grounds, and sit on the porch.
-It is a historic building and operates as such, including no A/C, so be aware/prepare for that. Climate change is real and it was much hotter the weekend of our wedding than was typical/expected.
- Sign up for their newsletter to get updates on creative workshops, dinner parties, etc. that the owners host throughout the year. We attended a dinner party before we got married and it was so fun to meet locals and other couples who had been married there previously. It's a wonderful community that shares a deep love for Spillian and all it has to offer.

Heidi Liou

14:48 27 Aug 23

Came here for a beautiful wedding, and stayed for two nights total. The staff was amazing and incredibly nice! Highly recommend. Lots of wonderful memories were made.

15:49 25 Jun 23

Excellent service!! Beautiful venue!! Food was delicious!

Jonathan Moore

16:39 02 Jan 23

Had a chef selected four course meal and spent the night. Wonderful food, wonderful staff, and a magical stay at a unique historical venue.

nancy cottrell

22:26 13 Nov 22

Just returned from my daughter’s wedding! Wow!! It was magical! Spillian gave my daughter the wedding she always dreamed of❤️ Thank you to everyone at Spillian! Truly a wonderful place !

Roza Goltser

02:56 26 Oct 22

Magic in the mountains! That's what Spillian brings to you. If you want your wedding to be in nature it is the perfect place for you. The grounds are stunning with huge bonefire truly makes you feel like you are camping with luxury. Perfect for groom and bridal rooms to get ready on location. Not to mention the estate itself is like from a different area. It was built in the early 1880's!! Absolutely glorious!!

Julia Masotti

22:51 05 Jul 22

We were lucky enough to get married at Spillian in June of 2022, and words truly cannot describe how magical and joyful the experience was. I work in the wedding industry, so as soon as my now-husband and I got engaged, I knew we needed to tie the knot somewhere off the beaten path. We didn’t want cookie cutter, pre-planned menus, or generic banquet halls. Spillian was the first (and only!) venue we looked at- from the winding drive up the forest road to the main house, we felt the magic and we were hooked.   Mark, Leigh, and the entire staff at Spillian treat you like family from first meeting. Whenever we went up to visit, whether for tastings or for a site visit, we were greeted with the biggest hugs and smiles. We designed our menu with Chef Christian, a French-inspired feast featuring the best of all local farms, and our guests are still talking about how incredible all the food was. A wedding at Spilling is so much more than just that; it’s a weekend-long celebration with all your nearest and dearest.

We stayed in the estate house from Friday to Sunday with our wedding party, and the house itself is fabulous- beautifully appointed, comfortable, and clean. We had our taco bar rehearsal dinner on Friday night, followed by a karaoke party (Mark and Leigh will really help you make whatever your dreams are happen!), our wedding in the woods on Saturday (complete with a bonfire and s’mores), and a send-off brunch on the lawn on Sunday. Mark, Leigh, and their staff are all so intuitive, quick to solve any problems we ran into and preternaturally able to anticipate any problems before they even arose.   I could go on and on about how wonderful this place is, but you get the idea. It’s truly magic, and Spillian will forever hold such a special place in our hearts.

Jennifer Sauer

20:01 24 Jul 21

Yeah, what they said! Spillian is a perfect venue for weddings, family and friend celebrations, or just to visit for a special event. The mansion is absolutely amazing with antiques and stories in every room and corner. The grounds truly are a beautiful and peaceful nature-filled feast for the eyes and imagination. The hosts are inviting, fun and funny, and super attentive to your needs, comfort and questions and I made it a point to chat with staff when possible and all were delightful and helpful. After a great visit, the hosts pointed me to a great hiking trail in Catskills. Many thanks for a memorable weekend!